Driving and texting. Let’s see what happens eh?

YouTube, as I’ve mentioned before, is a dangerous place. If you leave your children using it unmonitored then you really need to change your ways. As an example, there’s a channel called Fatal Accidents where you can watch just that. There’s no warnings apart from one that the …

Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away

We had a great stack of articles online yesterday, but unfortunately our magical Twitter rabbit failed to post any of them. If you’re following us on Twitter then you’ll have presumed that we were all asleep. Truth is, we actually added a stack of items. You can check …

Easily control your home appliances with your phone

Controlling stuff around the home with one of those funky home automation things does seem quite daunting, but this doo-hickey seems like a pretty good and simple solution. It plugs into any electrical socket and, using a smartphone app, lets you flick appliances on or off. The WiSPP …

Apple set to live stream Sept 9th Event

Apple sent out invitations to the press for their iPhone and wearable event on 9th. As Apple have done quite a number of times in the past for events like this they are also having a live stream – Apple Event Live. The live stream has a few …

Google Chrome for Android gets a material update

The Material design guidelines are slowly being applied to Android apps, with Google randomly update their apps one at a time. The latest app to get the new modern layered flat look is the Chrome Browser. Once I’d updated there isn’t a huge amount that has been modified, …

Podcast 108 – if only you had one of those waterproof phones!

Welcome to the latest episode of the Coolsmartphone Podcast, this week I was joined by Dan, Johanna and John. This weeks topics revolved around our special guest Johanna Whitaker and her travels around the world, the new Sony Z3 range, the Samsung Galaxy Note 4, the absurd Galaxy …

Huawei reveals the 6 inch Ascend Mate7

Today at the Internationale Funkausstellung Berlin (or as we know it, IFA) Huawei launched Ascend Mate7 alongside the Ascend G7. The Mate7 features.. – A 6″ screen with FHD display for enhanced entertainment viewing. – A Slim 7.9mm body. – A octa-core chipset for superior performance. – Massive 4100 …

Huawei announce the Ascend G7

Huawei make some great looking devices and this afternoon in Berlin at IFA Huawei announced a new giant phablet plus the budget 5.5″ LTE equipped Ascend G6. The pictures certainly make it look good. Spec wise it’s as follows: Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 quad-core 1.2 GHz processor. Internal …

Podcast 108 – Listen in live

  Welcome to the Coolsmartphone Podcast, episode 108. This is the live feed post, just click play on the Mixlr plugin below at about half seven tonight. Joining me this week are Dan, Garry, John and Johanna. Coolsmartphone is on Mixlr

Samsung announce the Galaxy Tab Active

Imagine the Galaxy Tab, but built for the rough and tumble of the real world. It’s just like normal tablets, but this one has an anti-shock covering which can resist a 1.2 metre drop with the protective cover on. It’s water and dust resistant with IP67 certification and has …

Lumia 730 and 735 Launched. Can I take a selfie?

Two additional Lumia handsets have just been launched by Microsoft – the Lumia 730 Dual SIM and Lumia 735. They are, to quote the PR people, “Built for Skype and selfies”. If you’re into that, these might be for you. So, to Skype and take snaps of yourself …

Microsoft launch the Lumia 830

Having a fancy camera phone is great, but if it’s too expensive then people could go for a cheaper option. That’s the thinking from Microsoft at least, who have today announced new Nokia Lumia kit at “more accessible” price points. The 830 is known as their “affordable flagship” …

Cat announce the durable and nippy S50

Over the years we’ve rather enjoyed dunking the Cat phones in water and giving them some general abuse. They’re tough, rugged smartphones designed for tough, rugged people like myself. Oh yes. But.. Let’s be honest. If you put one next to the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S5 …

KAZAM to offer Windows Phones – Thunder 340W to be the first

Remember the guys at KAZAM? We went to meet them at Mobile World Congress earlier in the year and took inside their pretty substantial toy box. They offer a wide range of Android phones including octo-core handsets and there’s a couple of ex-HTC bods at the helm. Now …

Where to pick up the new Sony devices

What size of Z3 would you like? If you’re on Vodafone, it doesn’t really matter. They’re going to offer both the 5.2” Z3 and the 4.6” Z3 Compact. You know how you can’t really choose whether you want that fits-in-the-hand, 2600mAh battery, or the3GB, 1080p display? It doesn’t …

HTC announce the Desire 820

Remember our review of the HTC Desire 816? It was a lightweight phablet with a 5.5″ 720p screen, 1.6 GHz quad-core CPU and 8GB of on-board storage. We quite liked it. Here, then, is the pretty similar Desire 820. It looks the same on the outside and has …

Sony announce the Xperia E3

In amongst all of the excitement yesterday afternoon about the Sony Xperia Z3, Z3 Compact and Z3 Compact tablet, there was also another device announced, the Xperia E3. A smallish device that will apparently allow you to experience a flagship experience without the price tag. Spec wise the …

Sony Announce the SmartBand Talk & SmartWatch 3

Wearables are a current hot trend and not wanting to be left behind today Sony have announced 2 new smart wearable devices The SmartBand Talk & the SmartWatch 3 The SmartWatch 3 is Sonys entry into the Google Wear field and includes 4Gb of on board memory coupled …

The Z3 compact tablet completes the trilogy

Alongside the announcement of the Z3 and Z3 compact, Sony also announced the third part of the Z3 trilogy – the Z3 tablet compact.   The Z3 compact tablet has the following key specs: 8″ TRILUMINOS display 1920 x 1200 pixels 8.1 megapixel camera 3GB RAM 2.5GHz quad-core …